Health in the United Kingdom dependencies.

  • Great Britain. Central Office of Information. Reference Division
Date:
1956
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health in the United Kingdom dependencies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in addition to sponsoring a medical survey of causes of blindness in West Africa, is active in other welfare work to bring relief to the blind. There are also very many instances of public-spirited co-operation and generosity by Rotary Clubs, anti-tuberculosis associations and other voluntary organiza- tions in individual territories. RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING There are at present in Colonial medical departments some 800 adminis- trative, public health and clinical posts for officers who hold a qualification registrable in the United Kingdom. Of these about 50 are available to women, mainly, but not exclusively, in maternity, child welfare and school health activities. Medical staffs are supplemented by a large number of nursing sisters, health visitors, health inspectors, pharmacists, laboratory workers and other skilled staff recruited from outside the individual territory and by many locally trained auxiliaries of every grade. In some Eastern dependencies, especially Hong Kong, Singapore and the Federation of Malaya, the medical services can now be maintained almost entirely by the intake of graduates from the Universities of Hong Kong and Malaya and by men and women of local origin trained in the United King- dom. Other territories such as the West Indies, Mauritius and Cyprus are also lessening their demands on recruitment from the United Kingdom. In Nigeria, although the Northern Region remains seriously understaffed, the Eastern and Western Regions are becoming practically self-supporting except in the specialist grades. The staffing position elsewhere, however, is much less satisfactory and often recruitment does not keep pace with normal losses. The Universities of Hong Kong and Malaya and the University Colleges of the West Indies and Ibadan in Nigeria provide medical training of a standard entitling their graduates to registration in the United Kingdom. Makerere College in Uganda grants a medical diploma which carries entitlement to full registration in the East African territories.1 In addition to those attending these medical schools over 900 students from the dependen- cies are studying medicine in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. A full complement of ‘medical auxiliaries’ is essential to the efficient working of medical services, and the training of subordinate medical and health personnel is invariably regarded as a first priority in departmental planning. Systems of training vary according to local requirements, and depend very much upon current educational levels; but training establish- ments are everywhere being strengthened and there has been a progressive improvement in standards. The basic general grade in East and Central Africa is the ‘Medical Assistant’, trained to carry out supervisory duties in hospitals and to take charge of rural medical and health units; a similar grade exists elsewhere, though nomenclatures and training systems vary. In addition, subordinate technical staff such as health inspectors, laboratory technicians, radiographers, pharmacists and physiotherapists are being 1For details of University and vocational training see COI Reference pamphlet RF.P.2605 of September 1954, Education in the United Kingdom Dependencies.
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